Page 22 of All for her Forgiveness

"One night, right here in this town, you told me something similar."

"What?"

"You gave me a ride, and when I asked who you were, you said:I'm the man who won't let you destroy your own life, girl."

"Your memory is coming back."

"Do you believe I lost it?"

He doesn't answer.

"Leave, Hades."

"No. Tell me what you remember from your past, Kennedy."

"I'll leave you two alone," Ernest says and heads for the door.

I want to beg him to stay, but at the same time, I know I can't escape from what he's asking me, because now, I think I'm starting to remember . . . everything.

Kennedy

CHAPTER NINE

Past

Almost eleven years after the prologue

NEW ORLEANS

I cross the carpeted hall,filled with slot machines that almost blind me with excessively colorful lights. I try to hold my breath to avoid inhaling the smell of smoke.

I’ve noticed that people who are addicted to gambling usually smoke a lot. I hate cigarettes; the smell gets stuck in my hair and follows me home.

Almost halfway to the room I need to clean, I see a pair of shiny black shoes in front of me. I don't need to lift my head to be sure who they belong to.

One of the casino managers, who has been pestering me to go out with him.

The man is shameless, as there is a thick gold ring on his left ring finger. If the rumors are true, he goes out with several employees, and now he seems to have taken a liking to me.

I don't like working here, but my aunt is sick, so when a neighbor, a man who adores me and protected me while I was growing up, got me a job as a cleaner and told me that the tips were good, I accepted.

Now the issue is not only putting food on the table, which is what I've always done since I was fourteen, but also buying my aunt's medicine.

Despite the cigarette smoke and some jokers who think I'm included in the daily rate of this hotel-casino, I earn almost three times as much here as I did cleaning people's houses.

Not that it helps much. We always end the month either in the red or very close to it.

"I could get you something better," the man says, and it's not the first time he's made this kind of offer.

He's not offering me a better position because he thinks I'm efficient—which I am, because I give my all so they don't complain about my service—but because he believes it will "soften" me.

At first, he wasn't so direct. He acted kindly, and the idiot inside me, who despite having lived with Aunt Riny all my life still believes in people's kindness, thought the man was really trying to help.

The first time, he casually "bumped into" my back. I thought he was just clumsy. Then a hand on the shoulder here, another hand on the arm there, and that made me anxious, tense enough to prepare to flee if he approached.

Until one day I couldn't take it anymore and told him straight to stop.

A sensible man, married and with a lot to lose, because I think he must have a good salary at the hotel-casino, would back off. But he revealed that he's not that man, because instead, it was as if I had opened a "gate," given him consent to stop pretending.

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